Lyft's API

Drive your app to success with Lyft's developer API. You'll find comprehensive guides and documentation to help you start working with Lyft as quickly as possible, as well as support if you get stuck. Let's jump right in!

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Overview

Welcome to Lyft's API documentation. Lyft's API enables developers to programmatically interact with Lyft's rider and driver network, enabling them to transport their customers with a smile.

What is Lyft?

If you haven't used Lyft before—or are unfamiliar with ridesharing—check out the Lyft homepage and the Lyft Developers Portal. In summary, Lyft matches drivers with passengers who request rides through their Lyft smartphone app...or through your application or service, via the Public API.

Why Use Lyft as a Developer?

Lyft has an expansive network of passengers and drivers across the United States, and the network continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

The Lyft API features and support are growing commensurately.

Lyft's API follows modern RESTful convention and is simple to use.

Glossary

If you're new to Lyft, check out the Glossary for commonly used terms.

Access

In order to query the Lyft API, you must sign up for Lyft Developer Program. From there you can create multiple applications, each of which associated with distinct client credentials necessary to access the API via OAuth2. Check the Authentication guide for more detail on using these credentials to query the API. In summary, every Lyft API request expects an Authorization header with an appropriately scoped OAuth2 token.

Rate Limits and Throttling

The Lyft API has default Rate Limits. If you reach the rate limit for a given endpoint you'll get an HTTP 429 response. Individual rate limits are listed under each endpoint in the Reference section. You can also get rate limit information via the API's response headers, as detailed in the Rate Limits section.

Timeouts and Retry Guidance

The Lyft API should return a response within 10 to 15 seconds. If your application has retry logic, please wait 15 seconds; it's possible your response is in-flight if you retry beforehand. Minimizing retries also serves to limit the possibility of hitting rate limits.

Response Headers

Every response from the Lyft API includes useful extra fields in the HTTP header, described below:

Header

Type

Description

X-Ratelimit-Remaining

integer

the number of calls remaining for the endpoint and time limit belonging to this request

X-Ratelimit-Limit

integer

the overall limit for the endpoint and time limit belonging to this request

Request-ID

string

a unique identifier for this request

X-Lyft-Signature

string

a base64-encoded SHA256 hash of a webhook payload; used to verify message integrity

Please Log Your Request-IDs!

The aforementioned header field Request-ID is unique for every single response from the Lyft API. If your application model allows it, please consider logging this value. When you have support questions, providing associated Request-IDs can make issue diagnosis and response significantly faster.